Near the end of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, two women return to a room full of people who have looked down on them for years. They are dressed in bright, handmade outfits that most people would laugh at. They don’t express regret. They don’t get smaller. They dance. It’s a brief scene in a comedy about nothing very serious, but for some reason it lasts longer than you might anticipate.
The 1997 movie, which was directed by David Mirkin from a script by Robin Schiff, centers on Romy White and Michele Weinberger, portrayed by Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow, as they travel to their ten-year high school reunion using borrowed clothing, a borrowed Jaguar, and a borrowed tale about creating the Post-it note. It is aware that the premise is weak. The effortless, unguarded chemistry between two actors who appear to truly enjoy sharing a scene is what keeps the movie going.
Sorvino, who had just won an Academy Award for Mighty Aphrodite, gave Romy a certain nervous warmth. Riding the Friends wave, Kudrow gave Michele a dreamy, preoccupied quality that was at once absurd and strangely charming. According to reports, director Mirkin specifically pushed for them as a “idiot blonde power couple,” a term that sounds condescending but actually captures something genuine about what makes the pairing work. These women are not being made fun of for being foolish. They are women who have their own world, their own logic, and a friendship that doesn’t require approval from others.
The movie debuted at number two at the box office in April 1997, trailing only Volcano. According to reports, the studio had desired something softer and more palatable. In retrospect, Mirkin’s refusal to back down from the film’s stranger edges was crucial. With a $20 million budget, the movie made $29 million, which is respectable but not outstanding. There was disagreement among critics. Roger Ebert rated it as one of the “brightest and goofiest comedies in a while” and awarded it three out of four stars. Some thought it was insignificant. It received a C from CinemaScore viewers. There’s a feeling that at the time, no one really knew what to do with it.
The more intriguing tale is what transpired next. Romy and Michele quietly amassed a fan base that the box office never anticipated through cable reruns and video rentals. It turned into the kind of movie that people saw on a leisurely Sunday afternoon and quoted for years to come. The Post-it deception. The sequence of dreams. The helicopter takes off. In a way that few comedies from that era were able to do, these moments became ingrained in the cultural memory of a particular generation.
The friendship itself is part of what kept it going. The characters, two friends wearing identical outfits, were based on women Schiff used to see outside a Sunset Boulevard club. Schiff wrote their relationship with a specificity that seems sincere. The men in their lives, their mistakes, or even their ultimate success don’t define Romy and Michele. Each of them defines the other. Even now, that is still a little out of the ordinary.
The upcoming Hulu sequel, which is currently slated for 2027, might either add something significant to that narrative or serve as a reminder to everyone of why some things are better left at one ideal conclusion. Nostalgia is a complicated currency, and sequels to beloved comedies are dangerous territory. However, Sorvino and Kudrow’s return to these characters after almost thirty years raises the possibility that there is more story to be told, or at the very least, that the fictional friendship still has some appeal.
When watching Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion in 2025, neither the soundtrack nor the fashion are particularly noteworthy, even though they both endure in their own chaotic ways. It’s the subdued insistence that those who don’t fit in can still succeed—not by conforming to everyone’s expectations, but by showing up exactly as they are, dressed in whatever bright, impractical outfit they happened to make themselves.
